A musical clock made of stars

I downloaded public data from Hipparcos, a satellite launched by the European Space Agency in 1989 that accurately measured over a hundred thousand stars.

The data I downloaded contains position, parallax, magnitude, and color information, among other things.

Sean Bonner, upon whose blog I discovered this, says, "I highly recommend fullscreen and the use of headphones. Listening to this is hypnotic. I want it to play constantly in the background of my life."

Ever since I was a kid, even before I’d ever heard the phrase “music of the spheres” I’ve had dreams–just regular, everynight common dreams about whatever–during which anytime I looked up at the night sky, the stars would make a faint chiming song that would haunt me long after I awakened. I tried to keep the sound playing in my head for as long as possible, but it would fade, and I’d eventually forget about the star-song until I had another dream that featured it. This musical clock of stars plays the exact same song…this has blown my mind. That it exists for others to enjoy gives me a sense of relief, as if I finally got that song out of my mind and into the non-dream world.